How to watch the Knicks parade on New York City traffic cameras

For the first time 53 years ago this time, New York Knicks fans will celebrate the team’s NBA championship win with a parade in lower Manhattan. Many New Yorkers will be there to celebrate in person Thursday morning, but not everyone will be able to attend the event. For those celebrating from afar (or reluctantly stuck in the office while the parade takes place), artist Maury Coleman has an option for you: watch via several traffic cameras along the parade route and surrounding City Hall, where the parade will end.

Coleman is streaming live camera footage as part of his project, GardenCamwhich broadcast and archived traffic camera footage of street revelers throughout the Knicks’ historic Finals vs. San Antonio Spurs.

A native New Yorker, Coleman and his friends endured many seasons of tragedy and loss. After his exhilarating win in the second game, Coleman felt like he wanted to do something to capture “the bigger energy flowing through the city,” he told WIRED. After polling friends for ideas, a “handsome lawyer friend” suggested he start pulling traffic camera footage from around him Madison Square GardenWhere fans were gathering to watch the match.

Coleman, who describes his art practice as “trivial posting that takes a lot of effort,” says he was interested in how many people were posting videos of themselves and others watching games outside of MSG, and wanted to give fans another angle to capture the experience from.

His initial coverage of Game 3 took a darker turn than he expected. Not only did the Knicks face a huge loss, but President Donald Trump’s presence meant that traffic cameras suddenly became a way to view the increased surveillance around the park.

“Instead of showing all the celebrations that happen around MSG, it was actually a way to see live border enforcement and the police state around downtown,” Coleman says.

GardenCam is the successor to Coleman’s 2024 piece, Traffic camera photo boothwhich exploited New York City’s vast traffic camera surveillance network to allow people to take selfies. The piece got an A Cease and desist letter From the New York City Department of Transportation. At the time, NYC DOT argued that the project “encourages and promotes the unauthorized use of traffic cameras in New York City (NYC)” and that people taking photos of themselves in the middle of the road was “inherently unsafe.”

Coleman was directed to “remove and disable all portions” of the Photobooth website related to New York City traffic cameras, and to remove all URLs to city-owned web pages, including any links titled “Camera Map.” In response, A Image of the message with a traffic camera and later showed the project at Art Basel in Miami.

A NYC DOT spokesperson told WIRED in an email that the agency “has no objection to the GardenCam project” but did not provide further details. Many streets and subway stations will be closed to the parade, and bicycles and scooters will be banned, possibly to ease concerns about pedestrian safety.

“I think they’ve learned to let me have fun, and I think that’s a good decision,” Coleman says of the agency’s stance.